As more and more information is stored as digital data, the amount of storage capacity increases accordingly. While much data is stored “online”, so as to be immediately accessible, there is also much that is stored “offline”. This often includes information which has been backed-up or which has been archived. Much of this offline storage is done on passive media, such as “floppy” disks, Compact Disks (CD-ROM), tape or writable Digital Versatile Disks (DVD).
However there is also a trend to storing much information on “removable” devices—such as hard disks and “flash drives” which can be easily attached and detached to computers (the “host”) via USB, FireWire, PCMCIA, Ethernet, or other means. This allows storage which is usually offline to be actively placed online quickly. Removable hard drives typically provide more aggregate storage than is presently available on CDs, or even DVDs.
Flash drives are typically smaller, but their convenience and small size makes them well suited for many applications. They are especially well suited for transporting information between work and home. Some flash drives are coupled with music players such as MP3 players, allowing stored music to be easily taken everywhere in addition to providing file portability. The most common implementation of current flash drives is with the use of the USB interface where the device connects directly to a USB port and no cable is required.
Another form of removable media that is in wide use today is flash media. Typical uses of solid state flash media include removable storage of images from digital cameras and removable music storage in portable music players. For example, a digital camera owner that possesses multiple CompactFlash modules for her/his digital camera frequently has trouble determining which media is available for use and which contain valuable pictures. Flash media is commonly accessed through external USB-attached flash media readers or via media readers integrated directly into personal computers, cameras, music players and printers.
Removable storage can be accessed, possibly modified, and then taken offline. Having such removable storage affords several benefits. It behaves like standard storage while it is online, but has the additional advantages of being stored offline (when it is not required) to reduce the chance of damage from network security breaches and can be sequestered securely to mitigate information loss from fire, theft or other physical threats. Another major benefit of removable storage is its portability. Removable storage can be loaded at work, taken home and updated by an office worker “burning the midnight oil” in the evening and brought back to work the next morning.
Increasing use of removable storage by individuals and corporations leads to “inventory” problems, especially in managing substantial numbers of such removable media; such problems as distinguishing units from one another; determining the ownership of a found device, determining which of several units has the most available capacity, or which has sufficient capacity to store a specific amount of new data.
While there are certainly disciplines to implement such management, existing solutions require manual action on the part of the user. For example the user could label each removable device. The label could include the information such as the contents of the media, its owner, and the last time it was changed. Such an approach requires discipline on the part of the user, many of whom lack the motivation and/or presence of mind to maintain such a system.
A significant feature of the exemplary embodiments of this invention is to provide a convenient and innovative way to facilitate such management, to improve its accuracy by reducing human error in labeling removable devices, and to provide, as part of an automatically generated human-readable label, useful dynamic information regarding the contents and available capacity of the removable storage device. The exemplary embodiments advantageously simplify management of storage resources by eliminating the need for manual labeling.
The illustrative embodiments of the present invention include storage units equipped with human readable electronic displays that contain information pertaining to the content of the storage units. The information displayed changes as the contents of the storage unit changes.
These electronic labels can contain a wide variety of useful information. Some information will be static, such as owner identification, while other information will be dynamic such as the amount of free space. Still other information will be browseable such as the directory structure and even file contents. The following is a partial list of contemplated content in accordance with one or more illustrative embodiments:                Storage unit total capacity        Storage unit available space        Storage unit directory structure        Storage unit file names        Storage unit file contents        Device reliability statistics                    Hours of use            Error rate            Total number of errors            Device internal temperature            Device fragmentation state                        Owner contact information                    Company            Department            Name            Address            Phone            Email address                        Security status of content—could be useful for controlling what can be taken from a secured area. Software would be included which would control access using this information.        Instructions for return of found property.        